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Rosemary Wells

Rosemary Wells is the author and illustrator of delightful books for youngsters. In this interview, Wells talks about creating books for children and their adult readers that will stand up to being read over and over again. Watch the interview, view the interview transcript, read a short biography on Rosemary Wells, or see a selected list of her children's books.

When Rosemary Wells was young, dinner table conversations revolved around the current day politics, the world situation, and history. Learn how Wells views the difference between writing for children versus young adults, and discover how her dinner table conversations led to her love of history.

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Rosemary Wells explains how she uses point of view to help determine what stays in a book and what is edited out. She says, "I know what kids at various ages comprehend and what interests them because children always see the world small."

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Rosemary Wells studies archival photographs very carefully, absorbing all the details, and tries to imagine the people in the photographs coming to life. She explains in this interview how she used this method to make Abraham Lincoln come to life as she was writing "Lincoln and His Boys."

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Rosemary Wells describes why Civil War diaries proved to be less revealing than she had originally hoped. She attributes this to a Victorian sensibility about what could be written about, or not written about.

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Rosemary wells discusses why writers who choose historical subjects bring their modern perspective to their writing, and explains the importance of accepting the historical figures in the context of when they lived.

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Rosemary Wells compares and contracts historical fiction with non-fiction, and explains how good historical fiction gets the facts right, but also gives the reader a colorful hero or heroine, someone to walk through history with.

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Rosemary Wells describes how historical fiction gives the reader a character and the emotional content to make a personal connection. Historical fiction answers the question "What does it have to do with me?"

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Rosemary Wells explains how she doesn't believe in a specific writing "process." The books just seem to arrive. "I am just a scribe," she says. She also shares the plot of a new book called "On the Blue Comet."

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Hear Rosemary Wells read an excerpt from her book "Red Moon at Sharpsburg." In this excerpt, two young characters are discussing how, to them, the reasons for the Civil War faded over time, and how life will one day return to normal.

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Rosemary Wells reads aloud from "Lincoln and His Boys." In this passage, Lincoln and Willie and Robert and Tad (the three Lincoln boys) and Mrs. Lincoln are traveling from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington — five years before the end of the war. We meet a loving and playful father.

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When Rosemary Wells was young, dinner table conversations revolved around the current day politics, the world situation, and history. Learn how Wells views the difference between writing for children versus young adults, and discover how her dinner table conversations led to her love of history.